


The Fire Is Winter's Fruit

by themantlingdark



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Christmas fic, Fluff, M/M, Sibling Incest, Smut, softboys, still haven't seen the movies, translates some of the events from IW and EG into a human au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 12:14:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18738802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themantlingdark/pseuds/themantlingdark
Summary: The brothers set out to visit family for the holiday, but a blizzard forces them off the road. They wait out the storm together in a hotel.





	The Fire Is Winter's Fruit

 

 

Loki checked the traffic on his phone before he left and made a pleased sound on finding it light despite its being one of the busiest travel days of the year.

An hour into his trip, he realized that the drivers who were not on the roads had remembered to check the weather that day and had altered their plans accordingly.

The low winter sun turned the sky a dim grey as a storm two thousand miles wide covered the continent in snow the same dull color, blotting out the landscape. The flakes fell thicker and faster until the distance between Loki’s car and the next could only be guessed at by the space between the other driver’s tail lights, which were a bleached pink, half lost with the blizzard. Thirty miles an hour felt too fast. The edges of the road were almost invisible, and more than once Loki felt his tires drop and drag, wrenching the steering wheel to the right as they struggled through the gravel at the highway’s edge.

 

When the car in front of him pulled off at an exit, Loki could no longer cruise in the tracks left by its tires. He slowed, eyes constantly scanning for landmarks that would let him know he was still on the road. The low speed and the muffling effect of the snow kept the car’s cabin quiet. The silence jarred with the surroundings. Loki expected to hear the roar of asphalt disappearing beneath him and the rough voices of engines all around when he was on this route. The world only whispered as he cautiously rolled over it.

 

With sunset, some contrast returned to the world, if only courtesy of Loki’s headlights. There was black behind the flicker of white now, like a lost signal on a cathode-ray tube TV. The world had edges again if Loki focused on the near distance, looking past the screen of snow whirling in the foreground to the light ridge at his right where the grass at the road’s edge created a step and gave him some measure of guidance.

 

The intensity of focus that was required for the bare minimum of remaining on the pavement was a strain at twenty-five miles an hour, but Loki was afraid to slow down any further, worried that if he lost momentum or stopped he’d be unable to gain enough traction to start up again. He knew there would be no easy way to call for help. Snow stuck to the faces of signs and mile markers, painting everything with thick, fluffy white, making it difficult to determine crossroads and distance traveled. He would only be able to say he was heading west on 96, and that at a whisper.

 

In four hours he saw just six cars on the road, none of which were plows or salt trucks. His muscles ached with being clenched in attention and his eyes were as parched as his lips after so much time spent unblinking in the path of blasting heat vents.

 

At the eastern edge of a college town, lit letters were still visible stacked up the side of a tall, plain building just off the freeway. HOTEL glowed weakly at Loki from beneath its shroud of snow. Wagering that most of the people in this city had gone home to see their parents rather than having their parents come to their shitty apartments and dorms for Christmas, Loki slowed to a crawl and cautiously snaked his way around the off ramp, passing two cars that had slid off into the ditch hours ago, their tops frosted with six inches of buttercream.

It was almost impossible to walk to the door. The snow whirled around Loki and pelted his eyes. He had to hold his arm up as a shield, but even then there were gusts that drove the snow so thickly through the air that the entry doors disappeared and left him feeling like he’d been approaching a mirage.

The lobby was empty of guests, though evidence of travelers remained in the form of crusted pools of salt on the tile floor. It crunched under Loki’s soles all the way to the front desk.

He pulled a pen and custom notepad from his pocket. The top of each page bore an introduction that informed the missive’s recipient that illness had left the sender’s voice at a whisper. Below that message Loki wrote, “Hello. May I get a room for the night?”

The clerk, Thea, gave him an apologetic smile and told him that the last room had been booked over three hours ago, but that he was welcome to wait out the storm in the lobby, and to please ask her if he needed anything. She’d call him the moment anything opened up.

Against the left wall, an electric fireplace that looked like a cross between a diorama and a television set was surrounded by chairs with loudly patterned upholstery. Loki took a seat and checked the weather on his phone. Radar showed a storm that covered half the country churning its way east. He was perhaps an eighth of the way into it at most. The forecast called for whiteout conditions for another thirty-six hours.

 

The harsh light of the hotel’s bathroom mirrors flattened Loki’s features and highlighted the red in his eyes as he dropped Visine into them. He needed to close them. He wondered if Thea would be able to get him a cot.

 

When Loki returned to the lobby, she was handing key cards to someone who had just walked in. She saw Loki’s mouth fall open as his hands rose, palms up, at his sides, silently asking _what_   _the hell?_

“He had a reservation,” she soothed, lightly chiding with a shake of her head. “I haven’t forgotten you.”

He nodded and saw the guest look at him, look to his keys, then look up again.

“Loki?”

Loki stopped.

An enormous man in a fair isle sweater. Snow had melted across his shoulders, turning to glints amid the diamond patterns in the knit. No coat. No gloves. Tennis shoes instead of boots. Ropes of thick blond waves flipped and bounced in every direction where they peeked out from beneath a cap with a pom pom on its top. The man was heading straight for him, seeming to want to run.

From five feet Loki saw the smiling eyes.

“Thor.”

Loki saw his brother’s features gather at the center of his face when no sound accompanied the shape of that name in his mouth. It didn’t halt Thor’s stride. In another second Thor was everything and everywhere. The only skin Loki knew by scent. Thor’s lips at just the right height to kiss the tip of his nose and the top of his cheek before they ducked to his mouth in their preferred greeting of more than thirty years. Thor leaned back but didn’t let go. Loki felt his fingers pinch where they were wedged under Thor’s belt, gripping it with white knuckles.

Loki watched his brother’s eyes as they took their inventory, darting over his features, briefly going sideways when Thor tipped his head to peek under Loki’s chin. He saw Thor’s mind doing the math behind the little rounds of blue, reconstructing the twelve months that had elapsed since they’d last seen each other.

Thor caught the four months’ growth of hair on Loki’s head, slowly coming back after being lost to chemo, the strands wispy and dull, but still jet black and curly.

The scar across his throat, like a centipede crawling under his scarf, where they had cut the cancer out. The sewn skin had healed shiny and dark and was puckered in odd places now.

The weight lost to an absent appetite, an abundance of exhaustion, and the memory of the pain that had accompanied swallowing so many times before.

The nicotine addiction that had started it all.

“Complete remission since September,” Loki whispered.

Thor pulled Loki in tight again, rubbing his back as he nodded against his cheek, tickling Loki’s face with bushy whiskers and wetting it with tears that Loki first mistook for melting snow.  

“Need a room?” Thor asked. Loki nodded and squeezed Thor again, to thank him and to soothe him, hearing the thickness in his voice.

 

Thor grabbed their luggage from their trunks and hauled it inside while Loki managed the doors and brushed the snow from their clothes. They sagged against the elevator walls as they rode to the ninth story, comforted by the low dings that announced each floor. Thor draped his arm over Loki’s shoulders, heavy and warm like the air before a storm on an August night, pressing Loki’s feet firmly to the floor.

 

Thor said nothing while they unpacked, merely bustled through the room. He hung up Loki’s coat and his own sweater. Texted their uncle to tell him they’d be late. Set out snacks, toiletries, and pajamas. Turned down the bed. Filled paper-capped plastic cups with water from the tap.

When he looked to Loki and parted his lips, the thousand subjects he could bring up flew through Loki’s thoughts, making sweat start under his arms and sending his stomach into a flip.

Eighteen months ago, their mother had died in her sleep when an aneurysm had burst in her abdominal aorta. Their father had found her cold on waking, called 911, and suffered a fatal heart attack in the foyer after opening the front door for the EMTs who were en route. The brothers were bumbling their way through planning a double funeral when a lawyer had arrived to explain that their parents’ will left everything to Odin’s daughter from a previous marriage. A sister they’d never heard of. They had thought she would give them time to sort through the house and take some keepsakes. Make arrangements. They’d been wrong. The art, the horses, the furniture, and the home itself had all been sold and auctioned off. Their father’s extravagant tastes proved too much for Thor and Loki’s budgets. They had gone to the first auction together, hoping to salvage something, planning to pool their funds if need be in the hope that, together, they could afford at least a few of the littlest things. Strangers with deeper pockets had won every bid.

They had said thousands of words to each other about it all already, and, in the process, had grown closer than they’d ever been before. But more could still be said. It was an inexhaustible subject, if an exhausting one.

Illness was the topic Loki dreaded, not because discussion of it had been overdone, but because there had been none whatsoever.

Loki had thought the tightness in his throat throughout the months following the deaths of their parents was simply a symptom of so much time spent crying with his neck clenched to choke back his sobs. His composure slowly returned, but the pain only worsened, getting to the point that he couldn’t eat more than ice cream by this time last year. In January, he’d received his diagnosis. He had set his accounts in order, sold his house, rented a studio apartment across from the hospital, and readied himself for a death that seemed certain. He had told none of that to his brother. Hadn’t seen him or spoken to him--or to anyone--in nearly a year.

 “Can I get you anything from the vending machines?” Thor asked. “Or order some room service? Something hot?”

Loki blinked, smiled, and shook his head no. “Hot shower,” Loki whispered, pointing at the bathroom door.

“Good call. The drive was tense,” Thor said, and Loki nodded.

Thor kicked off his shoes and flopped down on the bed. He scanned through the channels on the television twice before giving up and opening his laptop to the middle of a cooking video. Loki appreciated the sense of privacy his brother’s distractions provided. His body was still little better than bones. He was hopeful that the holiday, with its rich food, and the winter, with its incentives to stay inside, would join forces to help him put on weight.

“Sweet potato casserole,” Loki breathed, almost sighing, leaning over the bed to get a better look at the tutorial.

“I told Freyr I’d help him with Christmas dinner this year. Here’s hoping two heads are better than one.”

Loki hummed and squeezed Thor’s knee, then toddled toward the bathroom.

“Want the thermostat turned up so it’s not a shock out here after your shower?” Thor called.

Loki gave an enthusiastic nod and a thumbs up before shutting the door.

 

The spray and steam felt like spring rain to Loki’s cacti eyes. He stared at the smooth vinyl of the shower wall while the water’s drumming heat beat the ache from his back and shoulders. When he grew sleepy, he drizzled shampoo into his cupped palm, clicked the bottle shut, and swore. He’d poured enough to wash the full head of shoulder-length hair he no longer had. He wondered if the strange environment had reset his mind and his muscles, overriding the new habits he’d built since chemo. He used the excess to wash his body, churning up a great froth of bubbles as he shampooed his crotch, wondering why that wasn’t the standard practice with shampoo, and whether or not Thor used any on his beard.

 

The room was warm and smelled like a café when Loki came out to tug on his pajamas.

“Coffee?” Loki asked, with one eyebrow raised and his index finger tapping the top of his naked wrist as if it bore a watch. The wet click of the hard C and the airy catch of the lower lip that made the F were the dominant sounds in his mouth.

“Decaf,” Thor smiled.

It looked to Loki like a mug of coffee-flavored-cream, which was how their mother had always taken it. The colorful wrapper of a good candy bar was torn halfway open on the nightstand. Fuchsia paper overlaid with a pattern of eagle wings. Dark chocolate with eight cells of salted caramel.

“Help yourself,” Thor said, seeing Loki eyeing it. Loki snapped off a square and let it melt on his tongue as he shuffled under the covers and settled against the headboard beside his brother. A tutorial for herb and onion stuffing lulled Loki into a doze.

 

When Loki woke, he found his odd, propped-up position more disorienting than the hotel room itself.

Thor paused where he was trying to slip out of bed. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“’S’alright,” Loki slurred, then squinted at the glowing red numbers on the nightstand. Nearly one a.m. “What time is check-out?”

“Noon,” Thor murmured, wiping drool from Loki’s chin with the side of his finger and drying it on his own t-shirt. “But we have the room for another night. The snow won’t stop any time soon. No sense in trying the roads before the storm is over. Continental breakfast is from seven to eleven. We should probably try to go, since we won’t be able to get to a grocery store.”

Loki hummed and rearranged the pillows, then scooted down the bed.

“Need the bathroom?” Thor asked.

Loki shook his head no.

He meant to close his eyes and try to sleep--or at least pretend to, intending to return Thor’s gift of privacy--but he never even blinked. Only stared as Thor tugged off his shirt, revealing smooth curves that glowed a rosy gold in the lamplight. Loki wanted to stand behind him, rest his cheek on the top of Thor’s shoulder, and run his hands over Thor’s round belly until he and his brother were all but asleep on their feet. He thought of the sculptures of Egyptian scribes, with their wealth worn as extra weight around the waist. Thor wore his sorrow in that fashion, but it looked every bit as lovely. Loki lamented that he had no Michelangelo on hand to immortalize it.

Thor’s balance was as effortless as ever. Centered no matter how upset. Loki pictured his brother as a plumb line of poured honey. Thor shifted from foot to foot to strip off his socks in mirrored motions without a hint of wobble, then stepped out of his jeans and boxers to the tune of quietly flapping cotton and a quickly-drawn breath that Loki only half hoped his brother hadn’t heard. A bottom as smooth as a baby’s. Loki wished their mother were here to sneak a peek at a sight so sweet. Wished he could nudge her with his elbow and hold his hand out in front of them, nearer to Thor’s backside, making a little pinching motion with his fingertips to set their mother laughing.

Thor was all Loki had left of her now. Her riot of oak-blond hair was swaying at Thor’s cheeks. Her clever hands, with their long, thin fingers, were undoing the braids that met at the back of his head. And the small, high breasts that had let her go comfortably braless all her life were now living on Thor’s chest, calling out to Loki’s lips more loudly than anything else ever had.

“Would you like the lights off?” Thor asked, sitting on his hip at the edge of the mattress and reaching to set a few of Loki’s cowlicks to rights. It took Loki a moment to register the question.

“Only if you can get back to bed without them.”

Thor nodded and leaned down to kiss Loki’s nose.

“Love you,” Loki whispered, and hated that every word that passed his lips now left him wondering whether or not it had been heard.

“Love you too.” Thor smiled and kissed him again, twice on the cheek and once on the mouth, then rose and switched off the light.

 

Loki listened to the rush of running water. Louder than he expected, and more brief. It shut off after just a few minutes. Loki couldn’t remember Thor ever having been one for military showers before.

He hopped out of bed and pulled the curtains aside to peek at the weather. The other buildings on the street were barely legible through the swirling mass of snow. The flakes were the wide, flat, sparkling kind. More a heaven of diamonds than a black sky speckled with stars could ever be.

Below the tapping of snow at the windowpane, the hum of the heating was the only sound. No dull roar from the highway or honking of horns. No whine of vacuum cleaners. No knocks and calls of “housekeeping” or children shrieking down the halls. The brothers had the world to themselves.

Loki drew the curtains again so the glare of snow wouldn’t wake them early. It would be a relief to let night linger. Loki felt safest after sundown now. No calls or emails came from lawyers late at night. The courts were closed. Appraisers and auction houses were locked up tight. Oncologists were asleep in their beds. Loki’s life and time were his own in the dark.

The chlorine scent in the bed linens and bath towels spoke to Loki of high turnover and the inescapable messiness of existence. Thousands of people coming and going. Eating, sleeping, bathing, shitting, laughing, crying, fucking, and, surely from time to time, dying. The walls, sheets, and furniture outlasting them. Neighbors unknown. One person or pair in the bed tonight, another in it tomorrow. The guests and their lives here released and erased. Whether their stay had been insignificant or eventful was a mystery even to the proprietor. All evidence was swept and bleached away. The hotel was a sped-up version of what life was. Temporary. All rooms were ultimately only rented. Paying off the mortgage wouldn’t save you.

He went to hang the “do not disturb” sign on the outer door knob but found his brother had already done so.

The shower still hadn’t come on again. Red water and slashed wrists rushed up in Loki’s mind just as music started, making him jump. He looked to the bedside to see if his brother’s phone was ringing but found it dark. A familiar song. Loki knew the words and his mind filled in the instruments, but there were no drums or guitar. He’d never thought to look for a vocal isolation of the track.

Then the music paused and there was a wet dunking sound before the words resumed. Just Thor, singing in the bathtub like a captive mermaid. Loki felt the bottom drop out of his belly at “Remember me love, when I’m reborn.” The words were like having his brother’s death thrown at his feet.

Loki pressed his ear to the bathroom door and let himself listen to the rest, then let himself in when the song ended.

Thor was stretched out in a pool of suds with his knees poking up above the water. Somehow he looked small despite being too long for the tub.

“Shit,” Thor groaned. “Sorry. Woke you up again.”

“No,” Loki soothed. The hard, smooth surface of the tile helped him, bouncing his breath-of-a-voice across the room. “You sound just like him. And you did the brogue.”

“Wouldn’t sound right without the brogue. Was nice to hear him use it.”

“Mm,” Loki agreed, and went to put more drops in his eyes.

When he was out walking in a park or curled up in bed, it was easy for Loki to forget his own face. But any reflection, be it window, mirror, screen, or a stranger’s unmoved expression, told him he was old enough now to have been consigned to the segment of the population that was seldom given a second glance. No longer targeted by ads for things that were beautiful and sexy, like clothes and perfume. His was the demographic for life insurance, house paint, and medications with side effects that were worse than the disease.

His color was still off from chemo and it was given no assistance by flickering fluorescent bulbs and the blank white walls of the hotel bathroom. Reflected light usually helped him, filling in his hollows, but here it replaced them with a ghastly pallor that robbed him of any other features. Weight loss had forced him to update his wardrobe. He’d opted for dusty pinks and corals. Their tints bounced up onto his skin, creating the illusion of health. But he’d kept his old white pajamas, wanting their soft, worn-out cotton against his thin, tired skin. The only color in this room that would look good on Loki came from Thor. Ruddy even in the dead of winter.

Loki sat on the toilet lid, rested his elbows on his knees, and put his chin in his hands.

“You’re tired,” Thor said.

“All the time,” Loki agreed.

“Anything I can do?”

“They told me to expect fatigue. Maybe for years.”

Thor frowned. “Where are you living?”

Loki closed his eyes. “Across the street from Mercy.”

“You’ve been ten miles from me this whole time?”

“I’ve been in another world,” Loki whispered, shaking his head while his face crumpled. “Nightmare,” he choked.

The world went wavy in Loki’s wet eyes. He heard the splash and spill of water as Thor rose beside him. Heard the flutter of a towel and the scrub of terry cloth. The faint, damp slap of Thor’s feet on the floor. And then Thor had him under the armpits and was helping him up, half-steering, half-hauling him to bed, lifting Loki’s legs onto the mattress for him after he had taken a seat, then pulling up the blankets and tucking him in. Loki heard the metallic whir of a hair dryer and then the scrub of a toothbrush. A cloud of mint accompanied Thor when he climbed into bed at Loki’s right and curled toward him.

Loki took Thor’s wrist and draped Thor’s arm over his ribs, then stroked it with his fingers. Thor’s arms had always been enormous, but they’d grown even bigger. And softer. Thor’s flesh shaped itself to Loki’s fingers now, where before his hands would have bounced and stuttered over muscle, vein, and bone with only the barest layer of skin to cushion them.

Even being exhausted was better with company. If the company was Thor. With him, the world was always softer, warmer, and safer. Loki felt like a fool. He could have had his brother by his side throughout his sickness. In hindsight, anyway. As it had happened, it had looked like a lost cause. Loki had counted his luck gone when he’d lost his parents. Cancer could only sound like a synonym for death-sentence coming on the heels of so much loss. He hadn’t wanted Thor to put any more eggs in the rotten family basket. So the brothers had lost a year. And then, in September, a stay of execution. It hadn’t seemed possible. Loki still spent half his nights lying awake in bed, wondering not _if_ his cancer would recur, but _when_. But life was always a case of _when_ rather than _if_. Loki knew they were going to lose everything in the end regardless. The house always won. But if they were going to lose it all, it seemed absurd not to have it all to begin with. To forfeit anything in advance by never having the nerve to know it was unconscionable. Most people only noticed their gods when they lost them. It was why a struck bird twitching at the roadside stayed fresh in the mind though a lifetime. Loki had begun to suspect he was not most people. He had long known his brother did not fall under the umbrella of the average.

Thor had been there through everything Loki could bear to share. Through the highs and the ever-descending lows. Seen every stage and phase. Every leap and stumble. Had picked Loki up from parties he’d been too young to attend and smuggled his puke-drunk, stumbling, scarecrow frame back into the house and up into bed right under Odin’s nose. Had, after receiving a string of texts--from the next room--almost too embarrassing to send, helped Loki lie across the back seat of the car and had driven him to the campus ER to have a fumbled, still-buzzing vibrator retrieved from his rectum. Had picked up adult diapers at the twenty-four hour pharmacy on the way home that night and had helped Loki into one when they’d gotten back to their apartment, knowing Loki would be helplessly, apocalyptically shitting himself throughout the coming hours. Had helped him out of it again and into a fresh one. Had never told a soul. Had answered all of Loki’s four a.m. phone calls across a span of fifteen years and hadn’t once hung up. Had withstood the relentless request: “Remind me again why we’re going on living?” Thor’s answers had always been different, funny, and--maddeningly-- _right_.

Loki wondered if Thor remembered his responses. Wondered if he could come up with any new ones now. If he needed Loki to spot him a few.

“What are we living for?” Loki whispered.

“Um.” Thor yawned and chewed the chapped skin on his lower lip. “We have to outlast the major players of the current administration.”

“Oooo, that’s a good one,” Loki breathed, rolling toward Thor and tucking his face under Thor’s cheek, intending to press in further and whisper in Thor’s ear, but instead going still when the edges of their mouths were side by side. He could smell the hotel’s shampoo in Thor’s beard.

“Remember how much fun we had when Scalia finally ate it?” Thor asked, and they both shook with laughter.

“Oh god,” Loki moaned. “That cake you made. The rainbow frosting. I think about it all the time. And the soixante-quinze cocktails and clearance Valentine’s Day candy.”

“So many cake-worthy deaths coming up,” Thor purred, grinning against the edges of Loki’s lips.

“That’s the most delicious thing I’ve heard in years.”

Thor hummed against Loki’s cheek and rubbed his bony back, shifting Loki’s body up and down the bed. Loki felt the drag of Thor’s full belly against the hollow of his own. He wondered when Thor had last celebrated something. His birthday had been in March.

“How are your shitty friends?” Loki asked, and heard a bitter huff of laughter pass through his brother’s lips.

“I wouldn’t know.”

Thor had been popular all his life. Through his brother, Loki had acquired hundreds of acquaintances-by-association. He had been surprised when none of them had sent him sympathy cards or flowers after their parents had died--and he had been furious to learn Thor hadn’t received any either. There had been no familiar faces outside of family members at the funeral. No casseroles or phone calls or donations made in their mother’s name. Only a wall of silence roaring at Thor’s back.

“I didn’t realize it had always been _me_ calling _them_ to make the plans until…”

“Until you stopped,” Loki finished.

Thor nodded. “Baldr’s the only one who texts me these days.”

Loki went tense and was pulling his face out from beneath his brother’s beard when Thor pushed him onto his back and settled on top of him.

“Let me go,” Loki whined.

“Are you going to get up and pace around the room, picking your hands and sending angry texts to all my friends at two a.m.?”

Loki struggled briefly, trying to free himself, then went limp and let half the air breeze out of his lungs.

“Yes.”

“I’m tired just thinking about it,” Thor said, then shook his head faintly from side to side, silently, sweetly disapproving--and tickling Loki’s neck with his beard in the process.

Loki twitched.

Thor made a predatory hum and shook his head again.

Soon Loki was thrashing, giggling and breathless, as he tried and failed to squirm away from Thor’s whiskers.

“You smell nice,” Thor said, sagging and settling when Loki started wheezing, pressing his nose into Loki’s collarbones, neck, and hair, eliciting a few more squeaks and flinches. “No more cigarette smoke. You haven’t smelled this good since high school.”

“That’s a horrifying thought,” Loki laughed. “My perfume peaked at seventeen.”

Thor rocked his body from side to side once to scold his brother, then froze and sucked in a breath as if he’d been stung.

“Am I squishing you?” Thor winced.

“No,” Loki soothed. “You’re like the heated version of those weighted blankets. I want to sleep like this.”

Loki had thought he’d feel frustrated at being confined by anything, even his brother. But he didn’t want to be released. He wanted Thor to hold him closer. Longer. Thor was being careful with him, keeping most of his weight on his elbows and knees. Like a roof over Loki’s head. His skin was hot and still faintly damp from his bath. Smooth and soothing. Everything winter was not. Loki wished he could see the view from the ceiling. He found it funny that Thor had conspired with Earth’s gravity and a pillow-top mattress to capture him. A boyishly sweet and sentimental trap. The same one Thor had used when they were children. Never wrestling on the hardwood floors. Only on the safe cushions of sofas and beds. Loki’s own sense of sentiment was causing him to wish he could thank the Earth for letting him feel Thor's weight.

 

“Your nails are nice for back-scratching,” Thor said, when Loki’s fingers had been skating over his skin in looping designs for five minutes. “Are you growing them out for a manicure?”

Loki puffed a small laugh through his nose. Almost a scoff.

“Yesterday I did,” Loki narrowed his eyes, remembering, “four weeks’ worth of laundry and two weeks’ worth of dishes. Just... hadn’t felt like doing them. Been cutting myself a lot of slack lately. But the thought of coming back to them next year was worse. I meant to cut my nails too, but… I let it slide. Too tired.”

“You could go to a salon. Relax. Get a mani pedi and a foot rub.”

“At this point, my toenails are so long I’d be too embarrassed to let anyone look at them.”

Thor kissed his brother’s cheek and Loki leaned into it. “Haven’t been showering every day either,” Loki admitted. “From ages thirteen to thirty-three, I think I missed two baths because I was down with the flu. Now… I spend all my free time sleeping on the sofa. Tell myself there isn’t much I need to wash off anyway. And no one’s going to see me. Go to bed instead of bathing as often as not.”

“Oh, Lo,” Thor breathed, and hid his breaking face by pressing a kiss to Loki’s cheekbone, just below the temple where it tapered away to nearly nothing.  

Loki stroked the back of Thor’s head and kissed his ear. Whispered soft nothings that soothed them both. He kept Thor close when he began to lean back, not pulling, only resting his hand on the thick blond waves that covered Thor’s nape. An upside down anchor. Thor looked down to Loki’s lips and grinned when they parted.

Loki knew he resembled nothing so much as a plaster copy of the mummy of Ramesses II, but he couldn’t feel ugly when he looked at his brother. Thor’s eyes wouldn’t allow it. They smiled at Loki constantly, through days as bright as apples and as dark as double funerals. They always had.

Thor took the practiced route, as if every kiss that had come before had been a prelude. One to the tip of the nose, soft and small because the surface was so tiny; two to the cheek, both firm and spreading, wet at their centers and more lasting; and one to the lips, but this time it lingered. Shifted. Softened and split. Thor licked into Loki’s mouth and felt a moan as sharp as a sob break against his skin.

“Are you al-”

“Shh,” Loki soothed, nodding his head and closing his eyes in a slow blink to reassure, then pulling Thor down again and stretching his mouth wide beneath his brother’s.

Thor was still hot and pliant from his bath. His bare skin warmed Loki’s hands in under a minute. The way the flesh bunched at the leading edges of Loki’s palms when he stroked Thor’s back made Loki think of kneading dough. Of bread. Of life. Something sustaining. A buffer between birth and bones, extending Thor, giving him more space and time. Loki wrapped his arms and legs around his brother's middle and squeezed. Thor hummed his approval into their kiss and sucked Loki’s tongue a little faster. Licked his mouth. Nibbled his lips. Breathed his brother’s name in the breaks between the nips and pecks he peppered over Loki’s face.

Loki felt the worn cotton of his pajamas slowly wetting as he and Thor rocked their hips in a lazy rhythm, teasing their cocks with rolling pressure where they were caught between their bellies.

Loki’s hands made a few heavy, curving passes over the meat of Thor’s ass, then squeezed the fuzzy cheeks three times in quick succession, setting them jiggling and making Thor laugh, both at the tickle of it and at the unsubtle hint.

“Do you have anything?” Loki asked.

Thor narrowed his eyes and hummed as he looked over at his luggage. “Chapstick,” Thor remembered, and climbed off his brother to get it. Loki flailed on the mattress as he scrambled out of his pajamas.

Thor fetched a towel and the t-shirt he’d worn yesterday for them to lie on, not wanting to bother housekeeping tomorrow for clean sheets. He propped his head and shoulders up with pillows and bracketed his brother’s kneeling form with long legs, nudging Loki gently with his calves to hurry him along.

“Not bad,” Loki murmured, pinching off a piece of lip balm and melting it between his fingers before he spread it over his cock. “Here, let me,” Loki breathed, nudging the backs of Thor’s knees with his knuckles in case his brother hadn’t heard him.

Thor brought his legs up and smiled wider when Loki looked up at him and raised one eyebrow, asking.

Thor nodded and watched Loki’s mouth fall open when he reached to thumb balm over Thor’s opening. Loki heard Thor hum when his entrance stopped twitching and slowly relaxed, sinking and stretching with each swirling pass.

Something fluttered at the edge of Loki’s vision and he looked up to find Thor’s hands rapidly patting his breast, inviting Loki onto him. Loki climbed up the bed until he was hovering over his brother, suspended above soft skin and smiling eyes.

“Ready?” Thor asked, and kissed Loki long and hard when he said yes.

Loki was in no shape to hold himself steady with only one arm. Thor reached between them and guided him in, lining him up and urging him on with tiny tugs from his thumb and index finger. When the second, greedy ring of muscle hidden behind the first caught the head of Loki’s cock, it pulled him in with a rush that made both of the brothers shout.

It was the first time Loki had received no comment about his body from a partner. “I’ve never seen one of those in the wild” had been the standard response to his uncircumcised cock since he’d started having sex. “What do I do with it?” was a close second. But Thor knew. Had probably heard those questions too. Their mother found the practice of cutting babies barbaric and had opted them out. It was a boon. The extra skin stayed put, sparing Thor from friction, while the firm flesh below it slid easily within the slack, stroking the inside of Thor’s body with a smooth, gliding pressure, letting Loki move without moving.

The warmth within Thor was so great that Loki imagined it must glow like a forge. He giggled against Thor’s lips as he pictured it.

“What?” Thor whispered.

“You’re like a furnace.”

“Mm,” Thor agreed, and wound his brother up in long limbs, coiling like a python until Loki went still.

They rested, rolling their heads with their kisses, moaning when their cocks flexed. Their lungs had synchronized, sending Loki high into the air on every inhale, sailing on an ocean of breath.

The roof Thor’s body had been was now inverted. Not something bound to one place by a foundation. Instead, Loki saw a vessel, carrying and protecting him. Its peak had become a keel, cutting through the battering sea, keeping them centered, thwarting the wind’s attempts to overturn them.

As soon as Thor loosened his grip, Loki started moving again, propping himself up on his elbows and bobbing his hips, dipping his head to brush messy kisses across Thor’s mouth.

“Little help,” Loki whispered, when the muscles in his legs and back began to tremble.

Thor nodded, held him fast, and flipped them over.

“Put your knees up,” Thor coaxed.

Loki did, and Thor rocked back and forth cautiously, testing the angle and alignment, then shifted his legs and tried again. The position met with his approval and he moved above his brother at an easy pace, sending his long hair swinging at his cheeks, driving Loki’s bottom down into the bed at the end of every pass. The new arrangement left Loki’s hands free. They flowed up Thor’s thighs, over his flanks, and down the backs of his arms, pressing and squeezing all the way. Loki feared his brother might object, but the bitten lip, the nostrils flared to let in more air, and the light eyes gone wide and dark all told Thor that his brother wasn’t teasing. Was, instead, feasting. Thor left him to it.

Loki felt his way down Thor’s front at a leisurely pace, lingering at his chest, cupping the soft curves and tugging the tight peaks of the nipples until Thor was panting. Loki put his hands palm to palm and slid them straight down between their bellies until his fingertips found the sticky head of Thor’s cock. Loki spread his fingers, like a tulip opening, to trap the whole smooth length of it and tug it with every pass of Thor’s hips.

When Thor’s breathing changed, his brother’s followed suit. Loki’s hands clamped down harder on Thor’s cock while the muscles within Thor clenched, wringing Loki’s prick. The hot spill of come against Loki’s belly sent his eyes rolling back in his head and made his hips stutter.

There was a broken sound low in Loki’s throat. Thor felt wet heat pulsing inside him as his brother’s narrow body stiffened and arched, then the quick, tickling glide as everything went slack. Loki’s mouth looked dry and spent.

“Lo,” Thor breathed, and his brother’s eyes fluttered open. “Stay with me.”

“I’m trying,” Loki murmured, with a slow, off-kilter blink and a sleepy smile.

“No, honey,” Thor kissed him and his eyes closed again, “I mean come stay with me. You can work from home at my house. I can do the laundry and dishes. Run your errands. All that shit. Feed you four square meals a day.”

“What happened to three?” Loki asked.

“How about seven?”

“Like hobbits,” Loki laughed.

“I mean it.”  

“Mm.”

Thor watched his brother’s features go limp. Saw his thin lips puff out around the deep exhales of sleep.

Thor was careful not to jostle him as he climbed off the bed. He came back with a towel and a hot, wet cloth and cleaned Loki up. Settled in beside him and drew the blankets up to his neck.

 

It was slightly after six when Loki rose to stagger to the bathroom, waking his brother when he slipped from Thor’s arms.

“All right?” Thor asked, when Loki climbed back under the covers.

“Just thirsty and had to pee.”

“Would you rather get dressed now and go down to breakfast at seven, or wait until ten?”

“Shit,” Loki sighed. “Might as well do it now, before everybody gets their grubby fingers all over everything.”

Thor nodded and Loki scooted closer, bellying up to him and tugging Thor half on top of himself. Thor raised one eyebrow.

“Just a few more minutes,” Loki said. “We can throw on clothes and run downstairs at a quarter to.” Thor nodded and set an alarm.

Loki stroked Thor’s hair and petted his beard, twisting the strands and tucking them behind each other, sending the scents of Thor and shampoo up into the air.

“How’s your butt?” Loki whispered. Thor smiled and kissed the worried wrinkle between his brother’s eyebrows.

“It’s good.”

Loki hummed and shut his eyes and fell asleep a few seconds later.

 

Thor canceled the alarm before it went off and woke Loki up with kisses to his cheeks and squeezes to his shoulder.

“Breakfast, Lo,” Thor murmured, and coaxed Loki out of bed and into clothes with gentle nudges, whisker-tickling, and a little bit of lifting.

 

In the dining room, they found a few fellow thirty-somethings whose jobs had conditioned them to rise early as well as a handful of older guests whose bodies woke at odd hours on their own.

Out the windows everything was white. The only chance anyone would have of finding their car would be to lock it twice to make the horn sound and hope they could pin down the source.

The brothers munched blueberry muffins and mountains of fruit salad while they sipped orange juice, but they were still hungry after their plates were empty.

Past the front desk was a mini-mart with toiletries, magazines, and coolers of food and drinks. Thor bought yogurt, granola, apples, and hard-boiled eggs for them to share. Loki got lube and eye drops.

They ate their second breakfast in bed while they watched _Monty Don’s French Gardens_ and silently wished for spring. Loki fell asleep on Thor’s shoulder halfway through the first episode. Thor followed his brother under less than fifteen minutes later.

 

It was after one p.m. when Loki rose and peeked through the curtains to spy on the weather again. Still white outside, though not quite as bad as before. He could make out the shapes of nearby buildings through the snowfall now, but he still couldn’t find the road. He pinched the drapes shut tight again, not wanting the daylight to pour through and nag them for being layabouts.

“Shower?” Thor asked, stretching his arms and legs wide and arching off the mattress. Loki wanted to ride him like an upside down pony. Have the curve of that belly between his legs.

“Yeah,” Loki nodded.

Loki got to soap his brother’s body until he was dizzy from so much bending, squatting, and whirling his hands. Thor draped Loki’s arms around his neck and gave his back and bottom a firm, slippery massage that had Loki humming and moaning and happily wiggling his hips.

 

Thor threw another towel on the bed and laughed as Loki launched himself onto the mattress and bounced high before landing in a heap with a pleased sound. He was fussing with the tangled blankets when Thor found the corner of the bedding and snapped it, sending it up and smoothing it out in one motion. Thor slipped under and gathered his smiling, sleepy-eyed sibling up in his arms.

“Need a nap?” Thor asked.

“Probably,” Loki sighed, “but I don’t want one.”

“Is there something you do want?”

Loki managed to fight back his smile for about three seconds before it parted his lips and flashed all his teeth.

“Hmmm.” Thor pushed his brother onto his back. “Should we play hot and cold?”

Loki nodded and Thor kissed his cheek.

“Warm,” Loki whispered.

Thor smiled and kissed the corner of his mouth.

“Warmer.”

Thor nipped Loki’s lips, then licked inside and spent the next ten minutes cupping his brother’s face in his right hand, stroking his jaw and cheek as they kissed. Loki’s arms and legs were clamped around Thor’s ribs when they finally came up for air.

“Warmer,” Loki panted. Thor gave Loki’s chin a parting kiss and trailed his mouth down Loki’s long throat, tickling him with his beard and making him shake with laughter.

“Warmer.”

When Thor sucked Loki’s left nipple into his mouth, Loki held his brother’s head there and let him lick, kiss, and suck the spot until it ached.

“Warmer.”

“I’m seeing a pattern.”

Loki laughed and flexed his cock three times so that it slapped Thor’s belly, leaving sticky wet spots on Thor’s skin.

Thor shook his head from side to side so fast it blurred, brushing his whiskers over Loki’s breast and flanks, making him squawk, bend, and thrash. Loki’s belly flexed, trying to crawl up under his ribs to hide from Thor’s beard, but it was no use. Thor kept sweeping his way south, undeterred by the open-handed slaps raining down on his head and shoulders, encouraged by the breathless stream of laughter bubbling out of his brother. He paused when he got to Loki’s navel, kissing and nuzzling the softer skin there, pulling it into his mouth and rolling it between his lips, feeling Loki’s body relax beneath him, lulling it into a false sense of security. When Loki’s cock smacked him again he attacked Loki’s hips with his beard, brushing the fine skin with feather-light touches that tickled a thousand times worse than the rougher scrapes had done. Loki curled up into a tight, protective ball with his limbs piled on top of his belly.

Thor knelt, bent, and licked a wide, wet stripe from Loki’s tailbone to the base of his prick. Loki moaned and spread his legs.

“Warmer,” Loki croaked, and they both fell apart laughing.

The contrast of the cool, dry, bushy whiskers and the hot, wet, smooth tongue set Loki’s instincts off in opposite directions, making him want to recoil from Thor’s beard and press closer to Thor’s mouth. It left him holding still, body taut, waiting for the scales to tip.

When Thor swallowed his cock, he could finally move, pressing his hips up, feeling Thor’s pleased hum buzzing deep into his skin. Thor made a seat for Loki with his hands, holding up his narrow hips, then bobbed his head above them until Loki’s head rolled on the pillow. Loki whined when Thor’s lips pulled off his cock with a hard, slow suck.

“Do you want to come like this?” Thor asked. Loki went limp and caught his breath for a moment, then blinked fast and shook his head no. “What’s that lube for?”

“For you,” Loki whispered. “For anything you want.”

“Thank you,” Thor smiled, then lowered Loki’s bottom to the bed, settled between his thighs, and licked his hole until it relaxed against his tongue.

“God, why does that feel so good,” Loki sighed, as Thor climbed up the bed and stretched out beside him.

“Lots of neurons there,” Thor mused. “Lots of fun taboos to break--especially in our case.”

“Understatement.”

“I like to think it’s due to biological priorities though,” Thor said, leaning down to pull the blankets up over his brother.

“Meaning?”

“We’re deuterostomes.”

“Why do I know that word?” Loki murmured, narrowing his eyes and sifting hopelessly through memories.

“Embryonic development. In protostomes, the first blastopore becomes the mouth. In deuterostomes-”

“It becomes the anus,” Loki finished, closing his eyes as it all came together.

“Yep. We all come ass-first into the world.”

“Explains everything.”

 

Loki didn’t ask when Thor painted lube onto both of their cocks. He’d be pleased with anything they got up to.

“Can you lie on your side and scoot back a little?” Thor asked.

Loki did so and Thor curled up like the little spoon in front of him.

“Like this?” Loki asked, leaning forward and rubbing his cock over Thor’s opening.

“Seem okay?” Thor asked.

“Perfect,” Loki breathed, and kissed the top of Thor’s shoulder. “I won’t get tired so fast in this pose.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

Loki gripped the bend of Thor’s neck with his mouth and reached down to brace his cock as he pressed into Thor’s body, laughing again as the heat engulfed him, whispering “furnace” by way of explanation when Thor looked back over his shoulder at the sound.

Loki propped his head up with his left elbow to let him better see Thor’s face. With his right hand he stroked Thor’s chest and belly, sometimes dipping low to wring his cock, mostly palming Thor’s curves in a soothing massage as he swung his hips in a lazy rhythm. The lube on Thor’s prick had gone tacky when Loki reached for it again. He licked his hand to re-wet it and stroked Thor’s cock with light pressure, matching the motions of his wrist to those of his hips so that the sensations blurred and spread for his brother.

Thor came with a quiet gasp, bending forward and panting, then taking Loki’s hand and holding it against his breast, lacing their fingers together and pumping them. With a few long, quick thrusts, Loki finished, sobbing against Thor’s back, calling his name, and falling asleep as Thor kissed his palm.

 

He woke with a start as his cock slid from Thor’s body, then groaned and knocked his forehead against Thor’s shoulder.

“Just keep still for a second,” Thor said. “I’ll get us cleaned up.”

A few minutes later they smelled like soap and water and were belly to belly in each other’s arms, ignoring _Love Actually_ on the TV in favor of kissing and nodding off.

 

In the morning, the earth glowed white but the sky was blue. The brothers opted to sleep through continental breakfast. They checked out late and went straight to the diner on the other side of the freeway where they wolfed down eggs and sausage and gulped bottomless mugs of scalding coffee.

 

Thor followed Loki west to their uncle Freyr’s house. Their aunt Freyja opened the door with a wide smile, squinting out at the glare of the sun on the snow. She watched her nephews' faces turn white, then red and wet at the sight of her.

“Sorry,” Thor choked, shaking his head as he went up the steps.

“It’s all right,” she laughed, hugging him hello and taking half his luggage. “I do the same thing every time I look in a mirror now. I usually end up putting pillowcases over them.” She leaned over to kiss Loki, then ushered her nephews inside. “Freyr fainted when I got here yesterday. There’s a bump on the back of his head the size of a baseball.”

 

Freyr and Owen, Freyja’s partner, had hugs for the brothers to start and handed them cider once they’d come down from dropping their bags off in the attic bedroom.

Their cousin Baldr came in from the backyard where he’d been walking Buddy, his six-month-old Golden Retriever puppy. Loki expected the boy to come rocketing across the room to hug his brother. Instead it was the dog, shedding snow, scrambling over the slippery wood floor, nails clattering, crashing face first into Thor’s shins and trying to climb him like a tree. Thor scooped him up and got a dozen sloppy kisses for his trouble. Baldr hung back by the door. Loki watched his cousin's pretty face go blank, then wide before finally nodding a hello.

 

For the past six years, every family get-together had been the same: Baldr following Thor through the house, asking him a thousand questions, hanging on his words. The two of them trading movie and music recommendations, roughhousing in the yard, laughing and playing games until two in the morning.

All day, Loki kept at least one eye on their cousin. He heard short answers given to all of Thor’s questions. Watched Baldr leave the room after his replies in the hope of avoiding more conversation. Saw Thor open his mouth, close it, and leave to help Freyr with dinner.

 

Later that night, they put _The Nutcracker_ on the TV and settled in with hot cocoa and homemade cookies. Thor took the empty cushion on the couch between Baldr and Freyja and asked Baldr how his art hobby was going. Baldr was doing figure studies from the TV and was halfway through a sketchbook.

“Okay,” Baldr said, then finished his drink in three huge gulps and went down to the basement guest bedroom without saying a single goodnight. He’d left the coffee table covered with drawing pencils, forgotten his phone, and had even abandoned his dog. Thor stared straight ahead with his nostrils wide. His jaw worked around an empty mouth while his eyes looked through the dancers on the screen.

Loki came in from where he’d been spying in the kitchen, stepped carefully over the puppy that was asleep on Thor’s feet, curled up on his side on the sofa, and laid his head in his brother’s lap.

“That’s Baldr’s seat,” Thor said, leaning down to hear Loki over the music.

“Well, he didn’t call fives. And he was letting all the head-scratches go to waste.”

“Was he?” Thor smiled.

“Mmmhmm,” Loki nodded.

 

Thor had been swirling his fingertips over Loki’s scalp for half an hour when Loki felt longer, more rounded nails against his skin.

“A challenger,” he purred, as Freyja did the top of his head while Thor took the back and sides.

“Thor, you’re going to have to grow your nails out,” Loki sighed.

“Noted.”

 

It was only ten-thirty when Loki said thank you loud enough that everyone could hear it, letting what was left of his voice break in the attempt. His aunt and brother buried him in unruly blond waves when they both leaned down to kiss him and tell him he was welcome.

“Can you help me upstairs?” Loki asked. Thor said of course and said their see-you-in-the-mornings, then carefully nudged the puppy off his feet and offered Loki his arm.

 

They heard clicking on the stairs behind them as they made their way up. Buddy beat them to the bed and settled on the edge of the foot rather than the middle, for which Thor and Loki praised and petted him. Loki took advantage of the bedroom’s privacy door knob, depressing the little button in its center as soon as everyone was inside. Thor recognized the lock’s twanging click and smiled as he tossed his sweater over the back of a chair. Loki skipped pajamas when he saw his brother wasn’t going to be wearing any.

The bed was a treat after the cold white sheets and ugly coverlet of the hotel. Here was fluffy plaid flannel, in candy cane colors, and a chunky knit throw made of yarn as thick as a parsnip.

“I’m going to strangle Baldr,” Loki whispered, snuggling up beside his brother.

Thor gave him a tight, grateful smile, but his eyes went shiny above it.

“Now I know how skunks feel.”

“He’s young,” Loki soothed. “His world has been safe and cushy. He knows exactly fuck all about life. Lucky him.”

“We were playing PUBG last weekend and texting three days ago. Said he couldn’t wait to see me.” Thor shook his head and scattered tears across his cheeks. “I mean, I know I look like the kind of guy whose pickup has chrome truck nutz and who doesn’t wipe his ass because ‘butt stuff is gay,’ but I thought maybe he actually gave a shit about me. You’d think I’d have picked up on the theme of the past two years by now. But nope. I never learn.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Loki said, squeezing Thor hard. “You’re not the one who isn’t learning.”

“It’s just,” Thor began, his voice small and high, gusting unevenly against Loki’s neck, “not even one thing could stay the same.”

Loki tucked Thor’s face under his chin and and stroked his hair while he quaked and quietly wept. They fell into the shallow sleep that’s bred by swirling thoughts and strange positions and woke twenty minutes later, stretching and shifting until their limbs were comfortable.

Holding each other turned into petting and nuzzling. Then kissing and rubbing. Then Thor was shuffling backward, disappearing beneath the blankets and giving his position away by sliding his lips down Loki’s cock. All the way to the fur, and no hands. Loki wanted it to last forever. His body had other ideas. Less than three minutes later, Thor was rolling his unconscious brother onto his side, spooning up behind him, and settling in to sleep.

 

In the morning, Thor put his hair--even his beard--in loose, lovely braids for the holiday. Half up, half down, pulling it away from his face, showing off his sharp features, though Loki knew that was not his brother’s intention. The style was likely meant to keep his hair out of the massive holiday dinner he’d be cooking later. Thor wore dark jeans, a blue button up, and a cozy Aran sweater that invited Loki’s fingers. He looked like the man he was: a sweet, walking feast who could pick you up with one hand, eat your ass like ice cream, and suck your cock until you cried because you had run out of come. Loki hoped Baldr would one day see the error of his ways--and that he would ache for it every day after.

 

Dinner was so rich it took everyone six hours to recover from it. No one regretted a bite.

They’d all been donating to charities in each other’s names instead of exchanging objects for six years now, but Freyja and Freyr did conspire to provide as many relevant family photos to their nephews as their albums allowed.

 

Thor followed Loki again on their drive back east, staying close behind him on the freeway in case he had any car trouble or got tired and needed help. It wasn’t until they turned onto his street that Thor realized they were headed to his house instead of his brother’s.

 

 


End file.
